Fromont and Risler — Complete eBook

to literature and published ‘Lettres de mon
Moulin’ (1868), which also made his name favorably
known. He now turned from fiction to the drama,
and it was not until after 1870 that he became fully
conscious of his vocation as a novelist, perhaps through
the trials of the siege of Paris and the humiliation
of his country, which deepened his nature without souring
it. Daudet’s genial satire, ‘Tartarin
de Tarascon’, appeared in 1872; but with the
Parisian romance ‘Fromont jeune et Risler aine’,
crowned by the Academy (1874), he suddenly advanced
into the foremost rank of French novelists; it was
his first great success, or, as he puts it, “the
dawn of his popularity.”

How numberless editions of this book were printed,
and rights of translations sought from other countries,
Daudet has told us with natural pride. The book
must be read to be appreciated. “Risler,
a self-made, honest man, raises himself socially into
a society against the corruptness of which he has
no defence and from which he escapes only by suicide.
Sidonie Chebe is a peculiarly French type, a vain and
heartless woman; Delobelle, the actor, a delectable
figure; the domestic simplicity of Desiree Delobelle
and her mother quite refreshing.”

Success followed now after success. ’Jack
(1876); Le Nabab (1877); Les Rois en exil (1879);
Numa Roumestan (1882); L’Evangeliste (1883);
Sapho (1884); Tartarin sur des Alces (1886); L’Immortel
(1888); Port Tarascon (1890); Rose et Ninette (1892);
La petite Parvisse (1895); and Soutien de Famille
(1899)’; such is the long list of the great life-artist.
In Le Nabab we find obvious traces of Daudet’s
visits to Algiers and Corsica-Mora is the Duc de Morny.
Sapho is the most concentrated of his novels, with
never a divergence, never a break, in its development.
And of the theme—­legitimate marriage contra
common-law—­what need be said except that
he handled it in a manner most acceptable to the aesthetic
and least offensive to the moral sense?

L’Immortel is a satire springing from personal
reasons; L’Evangeliste and Rose et Ninette—­the
latter on the divorce problem—­may be classed
as clever novels; but had Daudet never written more
than ’Fromont et Risler’, ‘Tartarin
sur les Alces’, and ‘Port Tarascon’,
these would keep him in lasting remembrance.

We must not omit to mention also many ‘contes’
and his ’Trente ans de Paris (A travers ma vie
et mes livres), Souvenirs d’un Homme de lettres
(1888), and Notes sur la Vie (1899)’.